Yesterday Barack Obama blamed his campaign for sending a memo calling Hillary Clinton the Senator from Punjab, India, and blasting her and Bill Clinton's investments and relationships with Indian-Americans and Indian companies tied to outsourcing.
The Los Angeles Times' Peter Wallsten reports that "South Asians for Obama" posted a "scathing note" on their website saying its members were "shocked and dismayed" by the memo. Spokesman Dave Kumar said the "main thing people have a problem with is the implication that having ties to the Indian American community, that fundraising from Indian Americans in the United States, is a problem. It goes against the inclusive nature of the campaign."
Meanwhile, Marc Ambinder reports Bill Clinton will campaign for his wife in Iowa for three days this July, earlier than expected. Virtually no one "expected him to campaign this early" assuming he'd do the most good late in the campaign by reinforcing her standing with the base. Clinton aides told Ambinder in February that it was unlikely Mr. Clinton would be seen on the trail before this fall.
As Clinton accelerates her Iowa campaign, she's quickening the fundraising tempo by attending three fundraisers yesterday and has several more planned before July, reports the New York Sun's Jill Gardner. Notably, Clinton will attend an "Indian Americans for Hillary" fundraiser on Sunday.
On political money, unions remain a large presence on the Democratic side, donating $54 million to the party in 2004 and six unions have been in the top 10 of total political donors to federal candidates and political parties since 1989.
The AP's Nedra Pickler reports that Bill Richardson plans to escalate the rhetoric over Iraq by saying as president he would withdraw from Iraq completely, leaving only a contingent of Marines to protect the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, though they and embassy personnel would be evacuated if it became too dangerous. In the speech Richardson is expected to say, "Senators Clinton, Obama, Dodd and Biden all voted for timeline legislation that had deliberate loopholes. Those loopholes allow this president, or any president, to leave an undetermined number of troops in Iraq indefinitely."
On the Republican side, The Politico's Roger Simon reports that Mitt Romney explained the reason he didn't issue pardons as governor was because he didn't want to overturn jury verdicts. Romney pardoned no one as governor, including an Iraq war veteran who was prevented from becoming a police officer after being convicted of felony assault with a firearm at age 13 for a BB gun shooting. As a presidential candidate, Romney says he'd be open to overturning the jury verdict for Scooter Libby by pardoning him. The campaign said the difference between Libby and the veteran is that clemency guidelines as governor "discouraged pardons for felony firearm offenses if the purpose of the pardon was to obtain a license to carry," and that others were in the "same boat" as the veteran and all were treated equally.
Meanwhile, John McCain collected money in Boston last night where he was backed by former governor Jane Swift, whom Romney beat in the 2002 gubernatorial primary.
In New York, the chair of the Arizona GOP said he didn't think it was a given that McCain would win their state's primary, reports the New York Post's Carl Campanile.
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